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This was the major learning for me when I was watching the November roundtable ‘On China’: Chinese Consumerism led by CNN’s Kristie Lu Stout today. It was even mentioned that the wealthy Chinese may have a luxiory car parked on the roads leading to Shanghai airport in order to save the parking fee. I was also struck by the fact that there are around 1 million Chinese who have wealth of US$ 1 million or more, and this number will grow tzo 3-4 million this decade.

Here are the related excerpts I am copying here from the written report about the roundtable. You can watch yourself in full on Nov 24, 25, and Dec 1, 2 on CNN as described in the roundtable announcement.

As China’s ranks of consumers swell — the number of middle class earners is estimated to grow 70% to 600 million by 2020 [from the current 300 million mentioned in the discussion recorded on video] — so too rises the stakes for companies looking to cash into China’s growing consumer market.

A dichotomy is growing in Chinese consumer trends between shopping for status and shopping for value.

“What that means is, people don’t buy mid-level brands, which is why you see (brands?) like Marks & Spencer, or Li-Ning, or Gap kind of struggle, because these are branded for middle-class consumers,” Rein said. “What we see is people either shop for the most expensive things they can get, like a Louis Vuitton or Hermes bag, or they go for the cheapest.”